


All is well

by thatsthefrailtyofgenius



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-21
Updated: 2016-08-21
Packaged: 2018-08-10 03:45:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7829233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatsthefrailtyofgenius/pseuds/thatsthefrailtyofgenius
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just the smallest influence at the right time, can put someone on an entirely different path.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All is well

**Author's Note:**

> This is just something I've been playing with for a year or so; a smaller piece to pass the time when I'm suffering writer's block. The whole aesthetic is sort of inspired by Rear View too, but the narratives aren't linked in the slightest. 
> 
> I really enjoyed writing this, but it's raining today and I can feel autumn rolling in, and I felt all warm and peaceful and I opened the document and suddenly knew how to finish it. 
> 
> Let me know what you think, and as always, thank you.  
> Dee xx
> 
> P.S the whole 'harry inherits everything' thing was inspired by this very cool post on tumblr http://snakesandcocacola.tumblr.com/post/145960926158/artemis69-weareallfromearth-beka-tiddalik  
> Also, I tried to be as accurate as I could with Harry praying; please let me know if there's anything I got wrong, and I'll correct it immediately. Its important to me that I'm respectful to people who follow the islamic faith.

Mt edgecumbe house looks like [this](https://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/03/1d/c0/79/mount-edgcumbe-house.jpg) and [this](http://www.britainexpress.com/images/attractions/editor/Mount-Edgcumbe-2474.jpg).

I chose that place for Draco and Narcissa because its one of the big beauties where I live, and I'm very lucky to be only a ten minute ferry ride away from it (also its one of my fantasy homes). The whole place is gorgeous, and if you ever visit plymouth or devon, I definitely recommend a visit. 

* * *

 

“My father will hear about this”

Harry swears to Merlin, if he says that one more time, he’s going to hex the bastard’s fingers into spoons for a week (and Hermione’s been teaching him how to make it so that only he can reverse that kind of spell too). Draco Fucking Malfoy.

Honestly, Lupin has his flaws, but he’s a fantastic teacher. The only reason Malfoy is acting up so much is because he can’t compute that somebody with shabby clothes and messy hair might actually have a brain inside their skull.

The lesson is a slow, but entertaining process. Boggarts were never going to be an easy subject to cover; the whole ‘your very worst fear will pop up in front of you looking as real as your own body’ thing is extremely stressful.

Padma’s is nowhere near as basic as her sister’s, and the black, smoke like vapour appears in front of her and winds itself around her head, and she can do little but stand there, frozen. Hermione whispers to anyone listening, that it’s the physical manifestation of depression.

Several times, Lupin has to step in and bring his students back to reality.

All the while, Malfoy stands in line sniggering and ridiculing everyone for their weaknesses, thriving off of all the attention he’s getting from his friends. He’s having a whale of a time, until its his own turn.

He tuts and swaggers up to the mark, uncrossing his arms from his chest and readying his wand.

An abrupt silence falls around them like a sobering blanket when Lucius Malfoy steps out from the wardrobe, dark green robes shining in the light streaming through the windows, pale blue eyes glinting maliciously, his posture more imposing than ever. And, with his breath catching in his throat, Harry realises that this is how Malfoy sees and experiences the figure that is his own father. Powerful in all the wrong ways, casting a dark shadow over his only son and heir.

“You are a shame to the name of Malfoy,” Lucius seethes, stepping forward once more. Malfoy whimpers slightly and shrinks back one, crystal blue eyes wide, frightened, and glistening with unshed tears. Harry can’t help but watch, an uncomfortable sensation rising in his chest. A pin drop would be heard amongst their classmates, who all seem to move backward in unison, gasping at the aristocrat’s advancing form.

“N-no,” Draco struggles “I – I worked hard on that test. The mark was only five from top-”

“Not. Good. Enough,” Lucius’ voice is barely more than a whisper, his syllables crisp.

“Draco-” Lupin begins, assuming an interruptive pose, but suddenly, Lucius is striding forward and his white hand whips through the air. The whole room gasp once more, expecting to hear a loud, echoic slap, like a sharp wave of cold air has washed over them.

But the crack never comes, and when Harry looks back, having turned his head away like the rest of the group, Malfoy is shaking violently on the verge of a panic attack, clutching his wand tight enough to break the skin of his equally pale palm. In front of him, a chicken with a limp is spouting crude swear words in a northern accent.

The intent is comedy, but the whole class is so abruptly stricken with the impossibly raw vision of Malfoy’s home life, that no one is laughing. No one is even moving.

“Mr Malfoy,” Lupin says softly after several algid seconds, not moving towards him, but addressing him directly nonetheless “go immediately to the hospital wing. I shall inform Madame Pomfrey of your imminent arrival”

Malfoy refuses to meet his teacher’s eyes or look away from the chicken for a number of barely released breaths, and it’s not until Harry feels his own body moving forwards, brushing away Hermione’s attempts to still him, that Malfoy reanimates.

“Malfoy,” Harry’s voice is regal, but quiet and attentive “you need to leave; you need Madame Pomfrey,” he repeats Lupin’s earlier request, feeling the stunned, disbelieving eyes of the whole room on him all at once. He’s never addressed Malfoy in that way; he’s never spoken to him with anything more than contempt. This is the first time in three years of knowing each other, that Harry has met Malfoy’s wide, panicked eyes, with understanding.

Malfoy blinks once. Then twice. Then his eyes flicker from Harry’s, and, as blood drips in strings from his hand where he’s still clutching his wand like he wants it to phase through the limb, he marches briskly from the room, slamming the door behind him.

* * *

 

“It’s the hunger, right?” Harry sighs, curling up in the chair beside Malfoy’s bed as he sleeps, pale face strangely peaceful “you have to scrunch your hands up on your stomach to stop the pains. You know, I never thought about why you’re so fucking scrawny. I guess I just assumed that all that money meant you’d never have to worry about the next meal. I never thought you’d have it kept from you because of a grade on a piece of paper”

Behind him, Madame Pomfrey is puttering about quietly whilst the rest of the wing’s occupants dream softly. Harry’s always thought the Hospital Wing is strangely beautiful at night; the long, framed streams of moonlight casting their glow in rectangles across the dark room, the stillness of it. He’s spent so many nights in this room, it’s like a home from home. But he never thought he’d be here by choice, beside the bed of Draco Malfoy.

“Mrs P?” Harry asks over his own shoulder “what was your diagnosis for him when he came to you this morning?”

“Shock, Dear,” she says, the frown remaining in place between her brows, one hand on her hip as she chews her bottom lip, the other coming up to wipe the slight perspiration from her lined forehead “poor bugger was in a right state. Just came walking in, hand all bloodied, white as a sheet”

“What did you give him?”

“Five hundred mgs of a calming draught, a syringe of the antihistamine Hermione’s been helping me incorporate into the medicine cupboard, and an OTC pain reliever for his hand. I healed the skin, but the tissue underneath it will take a bit longer to sort itself out; it’ll bruise quite badly. Professor Lupin came to see me afterward, told me what happened. Awful business. Why do you ask, love?”

Harry sighs, puffing air out through his cheeks and pinching the bridge of his nose between his forefinger and thumb, adjusting himself in the chair.

“I don’t know, to be honest,” he replies, glancing up at her “you should have seen him when the boggart manifested; his reaction was the worst in the class. I’ve never seen him scared enough to actually let himself be vulnerable in public. It was bloody terrifying”

“Boggarts always send at least one student up here. I’ve been trying to get Dumbledore to take it off the third year syllabus for ages, but he insists on it. Still, I’m surprised to see you here, Mr Potter; last time I checked you two little tykes hated each other”

“You’re not wrong,” Harry snorts “I suppose I just never really thought about what it would be like for him, you know?”

“It is the easiest thing in the world to despise the people we won’t let ourselves understand, Dear; Mr Malfoy knows that better than anyone. Off you go now; visiting hours are over, and I doubt Mr Malfoy would take kindly to it if he woke and yours was the first face he saw, particularly now his pride has been so severely damaged”

* * *

 

Harry sighs deeply and continues eating his dinner, despite the fact that for the hundredth time this week there’s a group of people about fifty yards away at the same table, staring at him and intermittently giggling.

Really, it isn’t that big of a deal, and after Seamus and Dean had got caught fucking each other in a broom closet two months previous, the fact that Harry’s a raging bisexual shouldn’t be too significant. Still, people continue to be far too involved in the lives of others, and not concerned enough with the fact that Voldemort is back, and that soon they’ll be at war.

“Really, Potter? Treacle pudding? That shit tastes like dragon dung”

Harry rolls his eyes and prepares himself for Malfoy’s satire as he casually sits beside him on the bench.

Malfoy draws up his own goblet of pumpkin juice, and pulls a half-empty plate of chicken and salad towards himself, simply picking at the left overs rather than eating an actual meal.

“Well you’re not eating it, so piss off,” Harry grumbles, dropping a piece of torn chicken in his mouth and resting his chin on the upturned palm of his hand, supported by his elbow on the table beside his plate.

“Bit touchy today, are we Potter?” Malfoy smirks, keeping his eyes on the food, seemingly concentrated on pulling it apart with his fingers “have anything to do with the fact that the whole world found out that you like it up the arse?”

“More to do with the fact that my ex-girlfriend hates me and refuses to talk to me,” he replies, looking thoroughly disgruntled and agitated. Malfoy snorts, sipping at his drink and bringing one leg up beneath him, sliding the plate away when he becomes disinterested. He tugs his bag up from underneath his feet, setting up a space to work.

“Do you have to bug me? Can’t you go and irritate one of the people who actually tolerate you?” Harry whines when it begins to look as though Malfoy is not budging.

“Why, are you afraid people will talk?”

“I’m afraid I’ll lose my temper”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Malfoy rolls his eyes, dipping his quill in the ink pot “I’d have you restrained before you could lift your fist”

“Why does that sound so dirty?”

“Because you need to get laid, Potter,” Malfoy grins, nudging him softly before properly beginning to concentrate on his work. Harry just drops his head to the table and circles it with his arms, closing his eyes and willing away the tension headache starting up behind his eyes.

* * *

 

“Harry,” Hermione’s voice cuts through his train of thought, making him flinch as he refocuses his vision “you were staring at Malfoy again; at least try to be subtle about it”

“I was not _staring_ ,” he pouts, furrowing his brow “I _wasn’t_! I just keep thinking about whether he’ll take the mark or not. Is – is he that _stupid_?”

“I don’t think it’s a question of being mentally deficient, Harry. It has to do with the fact that he doesn’t think he has a choice in the matter”

“But he does,” Harry insists “everybody always has a choice!”

“Choice is subjective when you’ve grown up in an abusive, racist, and manipulative household,” she responds, waving her quill in his face before she dips it in ink again and continues writing the first draft of her potions essay.

“He could go to The Order. Dumbledore could protect him and his mother”

“Nobody can protect anybody now Voldemort is back, Harry, not completely. He probably still holds a lot of his beliefs true as well; fifteen years of operant conditioning and domestic xenophobia doesn’t just fall away because Malfoy is pissing in his pants slightly and is just starting to figure out that he’s bitten off more than he can chew”

“Why are you defending him?”

“I’m not defending that bigoted asshole in the slightest,” she says, seemingly perfectly capable of multi-tasking and focusing on two completely different things at once as she writes about the healing properties of murtlap essence “but it doesn’t mean I can’t recognise that he’s the victim of years of horrific child abuse and is probably starting to suffer from some form of post-traumatic stress disorder. Similar to you, actually,” she smiles at him distractedly, lifting her eyes from her work for a moment before returning to it immediately.

“I don’t have PTSD, Hermione,” Harry insists defensively.

“You watched one of your classmates be brutally murdered by the man who killed your parents,” she tells him, handwriting graceful and neat as ever “and you had to watch Sirius die only a few months ago. Of course you have PTSD”

“I wasn’t the victim of child abuse, either”

“The Dursleys have intermittently starved you since you were a baby, and they’re as emotionally and verbally abusive as Snape on occasion. Harry, I thought you were already aware of all of this”

She finally pauses from her work and places her quill down, taking a hairband from her wrist and drawing her mass of afro curls up behind her head, her eyes watching the denial in his features.

“Have you seriously never acknowledged the extent of their mistreatment? Also, you’ve been having violent night terrors and you’re becoming increasingly irritated and disinterested in almost everything you’re presented with. You sweat all the time, you tremble a lot, you’ve completely lost your appetite, and you had a panic attack the other day just because Cho tried to talk to you”

“Excuse me if I’m not in the mood to talk to my ex-girlfriend,” he squirms uncomfortably in his seat “anyway, if you think I’m so mentally ill, why haven’t you been nagging at me to get some help?”

“I love you, Harry, I really do; which is how I know that you react awfully when your friends try to get you to do anything that means you’re going to have to talk about your emotions”

He can’t think of anything to say to her after that, so he simply glares at her before curling his arms around his head where he drops it onto the wooden table and groaning loudly, ignoring the urge yet again to look across the hall at Malfoy, the git.

Eventually he manages to calm down, and the irritation itching at the back of his mind soothes out, his heart, which had previously been hammering in his chest, finally slows to normal, and before he knows it, he’s dosing off to sleep.

After what feels like only ten minutes later, but is actually over an hour, he wakes to Hermione brushing the hair from his face and pressing a gentle kiss between his brow. He stirs, his eyes sore and tired as he squints up at her. She smiles at him and strokes his cheekbone with her knuckle delicately.

“We can leave now. I think it’s time for you to hit the hay. C’mon”

He catches her wrist lightly where she goes to take his arm and help him up, his eyes still heavily lidded, his guard significantly lowered, the sadness in his chest swelling at the love and concern in her brown eyes.

“How do I get better?” he asks, swallowing the lump in his throat “how do I find the time to deal with a mental illness when I’m supposed to be saving the world?”

“How about I take you to the hospital wing, now, hmm?” she suggests, tilting her head to the side. He closes his eyes for another brief moment, trying desperately to banish the racing anxiety building in his gut. When he opens them again, he nods and wets his lips. She hangs her bag over her left shoulder, holding out her hand for him to take, the skin of her knuckles dark and smooth and mildly scarred.

He shakily takes it, allowing her to help him stand once more, her arm sliding around his waist, the other resting on his abdomen in support. He threads his arm around her shoulder and allows her to guide him from the library, trying to pretend that he can’t feel Malfoy’s curious eyes following them as they leave.

* * *

 

“Pomfrey says he’s going crazy,” Malfoy’s cold, reserved voice draws her attention from where she’s propped up on the bed, Harry’s sleeping form wrapped around the majority of her body, his messy hair tickling her collar bone slightly.

Malfoy is in the bed opposite them, long length of his body casually strewn out on the mattress. There’s an angry gash across his left cheekbone, and his bottom lip is popped and red. There are dark lines shadowing the crystal blue of his eyes, and his right arm is thrown over what she assumes is a couple of broken ribs.

Ron snores loudly in her ear where he too is curled up on the bed behind Harry, his strong arm’s wrapped around the waist of their fatigued best friend, faithfully guarding him.

“Did she specifically use the word crazy, or are you paraphrasing?” she raises one eyebrow. He snorts, rolling his eyes.

She despises him, and can’t easily forget the awful way he’s treated her for the past six years, but looking at him now, she can feel her heart swelling with empathy. Resignation seems to be settling in his bones, which are frighteningly visible beneath his ghostly pale skin, and if she’s ever seen the physical embodiment of learned helplessness, Draco Malfoy is it.

“What’s got Potter all pathetic and useless?” he asks again a moment later “not that he wasn’t already alarmingly pathetic and useless”

“He’s had a lot to deal with; he’s just been finding it difficult to come to terms with all the death he’s had to watch over the past two years”

“Welcome to the club,” Malfoy scoffs, his voice barely audible. There’s something to that; something that sparks her interest and causes her to frown for a moment. But she reminds herself that she owes the racist aristocrat no kindness or compassion, and tries to force herself to focus on the anger she’s always felt towards him. But hate is a heavy burden to carry.

“Will you take the mark?” she asks boldly, watching him “or have – have you already taken it?”

He doesn’t even flinch or look at her. He stares sullenly at his own lap, his jaw moving slightly before he swallows and draws in a sharp intake of breath. Then his eyes flicker to Harry’s sleeping face, and she resists the urge to gasp at the tears glistening within them, the resentment and fear and pain more clear than it’s ever been.

In a moment of emotion that she can’t quite identify, Malfoy, still refusing to meet her eyes, pulls up the sleeve of his cotton pullover, revealing a shockingly black tattoo that seems to sway and hiss slightly where it’s needled into his skin, although it makes no actual sound, and barely moves enough for her to be sure of its animation.

The breath hitches in her throat, unable to tear her eyes away from it, even after his shaking, pallid, spindly fingers pull the sleeve back down.

It’s an overwhelming gesture of trust. Not in any sort of friendship or loyalty, but in her understanding; one broken, terrified child soldier to another. The shared truth that the adults in their lives simply cannot comprehend. He knows she won’t report him, and she doesn’t quite know what to do with that credence.

“Did you want it?” she manages to croak a moment later, her own eyes stinging with unshed tears “do you _want_ to kill me?”

“Not you specifically Granger, Merlin,” he hisses, rolling his eyes again.

“Maybe not,” she replies, blinking away the wetness “but people similar to me. I haven’t been cut the best deal in all of this; I’m a black muggleborn woman, I was doomed for systematic oppression. Of course, that doesn't mean I'm going to lay down and take it”

“Aren’t you scared?” he asks, still not looking directly at her. She sighs heavily, glancing down at her sleeping boys again, their steady breaths and weighty warmth running through the very blood in her veins; in all honestly, she likely won’t live to see her twentieth birthday.

“I’m terrified,” she replies, lethargic with resignation and solemn acceptance. It’s a powerful thing, to acknowledge that you’re going to be nothing but a limp corpse within the next few years or so, and to welcome that foreboding. It’s slightly breath-taking.

“So why are you still trying so hard? Why – why are you still so determined to fight?”

“What else is there?” she frowns, her lips twitching slightly when he finally meets her eyes “if I didn’t fight, I’d be giving up; letting you lot win. If I just let the deatheaters get on with it, I would be justifying and allowing what has been happening to my people for centuries, both in the muggle and magical world. I would be telling people that it’s okay to torture and kill others for something that they are incapable of changing, and wouldn’t even want to if they had the choice”

“You wouldn’t be a white pureblood if you were given the choice?” he inquires, surprised.

“Absolutely not,” she says with a small, exasperated smile “I’m proud of who I am, and I refuse to let anybody change that. I can’t believe that shocks you”

“When most people are given the choice between being right and being wrong, they choose to be right,” he says, and she snorts, her fingers tracing softly through Harry’s hair. Even now, it’s legitimately difficult for Malfoy to understand that being muggleborn isn’t some sort of atrocious abomination.

“Does your father tell you that whilst he beats the shit out of you every time you see him?”

“Fuck you, Granger,” Malfoy spits “you don’t know shit”

“I know that you grew up under your father’s backhand. I know that he was whispering poison into your ears from the moment that you could understand words. I know that you despise him as much as you love him. And,” she says, determinedly holding their eye contact “I know that you’re doubting your beliefs more and more every day as Voldemort hurts you and your family to greater depths. I know you feel the injustice, Draco; I know you’re not who everybody thinks you are”

He maintains their eye contact for a few more charged seconds, before he clearly can’t bring himself to say anything that won’t show how deeply in denial he is, and drops his eyeline. Ron shifts slightly beside her, holding Harry closer and subconsciously nuzzling his nose against his neck.

She suddenly feels the gaping space in Malfoy’s bed, and it resonates with her; such an empty hollowness in somebody so young. Yes, she’s had a terrible deal dealt to her, but at least she has her friends, her family, her boys.

Looking at Malfoy now, as he silently slides down the bed, careful not to jolt his ribs as he rolls onto his side, she realises for the first time how incredibly lonely he must be.

* * *

 

“Malfoy, don’t do this,” Harry breathes, his hand clutching the bleeding gash across his own abdomen “I know you don’t want to. I know you’re better than this”

Draco laughs bitterly, face scattered with dirty tear tracks, hair sticking to his forehead where it sheens with sweat, skin smudged with blood and battle dust. His blazer is torn and singed in places, and Harry has never seen him looking so unimmaculate.

“You’re _so sure_ ,” Draco says, voice gravelly “you’re always so fucking sure, so naïve. You don’t get it, do you, Potter? I don’t have a _choice_. He’ll kill them both”

“I can protect you,” Harry insists, feeling his world slipping through his fingers under the light of the dark mark in the sky “I – just come with me”

“What makes you think I even want to, Potter?” he says, exhausted and exasperated and panicked, time ticking away from them without their say so, all these borrowed seconds twisting the knife further “what makes you think I’m any different to them?”

“I _know_ you,” Harry says, voice shaking, heart shuddering in his chest as he struggles for breath and steps forward, desperate to close the gap between them, more obvious and damning than it’s ever been “I know you. You’re not this person, not really-”

“Fucking Gryffindors!” Draco exclaims, shaking his head again and running one hand through his hair “give it up! You can’t save me, Potter”

“I don’t want to save you,” Harry says wetting his lips and tasting blood on his tongue “I want you to save yourself”

Draco freezes then, mouth opening like he wants to say something else, but can’t bring himself to do so. Harry has never felt pain like this, seeing the longing in Draco’s eyes, the desperation to step over the line.

“If I save myself, my parents will die”

“Your father might,” Harry tells him, swallowing heavily and blinking tears from his eyes “but your mother is alive and safe”

“What? That’s – no, she’s – you can’t possibly-”

“I had a feeling this might happen today,” Harry says, stepping forward again “and Dumbledore owes me a favour. She’s at a closely guarded safe house right now waiting for you”

“But-”

“Malfoys adapt,” Harry reminds him, and this time it’s Draco that steps closer, incredibly confused.

“This – how do I know this isn’t a ploy? That you’re lying to me just so I go with you and leave them to die?”

“She told me you’d ask me that,” Harry’s lips twitch ever so slightly, and a bang from the floor below them reminds them of how little time they have “she also told me to tell you ‘amor vincet semper’? She said you’d understand”

“Potter,” he says through gritted teeth, finally moving so that they’re mere centimetres apart “if – if you’re lying to me, whatever I feel, whatever this _thing_ is, I will kill you. Do you understand me? I will slit your throat”

Harry all out smiles at that and nods, reaching a hand out to grip his arm tight.

“I know”

* * *

 

Narcissa Malfoy brushes a stray strand of blonde hair from her face and sighs, tying the green silk dressing gown tighter around her waist. With a heavy sigh, she slips into satin pumps and slides out the front door, furrowing her brow when she catches sight of Potter’s silhouette. He’s sat on the wall at the far end of the front garden, watching the sun setting on the horizon as the waves crash against the cliffs.

She sits down beside him a moment later, and lights a cigarette, passing it to him before taking her own pre-rolled one from the golden tin in her pocket. Potter doesn’t thank her, but he does relax slightly and shuffle ever so closer to her.

“I won’t insult you by asking if you are okay,” she says as she lets the smoke fill her lungs and filter back out through her lips “but you aren’t going to do anything reckless, are you?”

“Define reckless,” his mouth curves at the edges slightly but he doesn’t look at her.

“ _Potter_ ”

“No,” he replies, taking a long drag and watching the smoke curl in front of him “I’m too tired. Give me a few days and I’m sure I’ll think of something”

She can’t help the small smile of bitter amusement twitching at her mouth as the soft summer breeze brushes over her cheeks. She knows she looks exhausted; make up is not something she feels the need to bother with right now, and the long, loose fishtail plait her hair is weaved into falls limp over her left shoulder.

There are stitches along the top of one of her eyebrows, and her top lip was split in the fight to retrieve her from the manor. Not to mention the ghastly gash across her right cheekbone, and the dark circles forming around her eyes.

But as of right now, vanity does not seem so important; these people, their dynamic, doesn’t require her to look perfect all the time. It’s not something they’ll hold against her and it doesn’t make her feel any less powerful in their midst. Besides, they all look rather worse for wear these past twenty-four hours.

“Thank you for saving me and my son,” she says, and the words come far easier than she’d expected them to, the soft wind blowing in the tendrils of hair that frame her face. Her bones are aching, and for the first time, she really feels her age. Not that she’s particularly old, of course, but she’s not a teenager anymore either.

“It was the right thing to do,” Potter shrugs, dropping his eyes to the floor in front of him. She’s never actually had much of a chance to study Harry Potter up close for more than a few moments. When she looks at him now, he is really very good looking. He has his father’s high cheekbones and long nose – a pureblood trait – and his mother’s stunning eyes and squarish jawline.

Everything else though, is entirely him; from the specific way the soft curls tangle on his head, to his boyish, yet defensive stance. He has one toned arm crossed over a broad chest, the other bent up holding the cigarette. Long legs stretch out in front of him, ankles locked together.

He has the distinct impression of someone prepared to be attacked at any second, but the gentle demeanour of a person who touches with love and radiates compassion. It’s quite the paradox, and she finds herself mildly fascinated with the legendary man, barely eighteen with the trauma of a seventy-year-old.

“Your father’s family were from India, were they not?”

“Bangladesh,” Potter says immediately, as though he’s been asked that question a lot. Honestly, he’s still a bit defensive of his heritage; for many reasons, one of the biggest being that he grew up in Suburban Surrey. Coming into the wizarding world had been a sad transition, of realising that racism was still a thing, just a different brand.

“Charles and Dorea were odd people,” Narcissa comments, more to herself than anything “new age types; very liberal. Highly uncommon for two purebloods. I barely remember them, but I met Dorea once. My mother was not particularly close to her aunts, but I do remember thinking that she was astoundingly beautiful; her husband even more so. The Potters are a very old family, very respected although not widely talked of, particularly after-”

“After my dad married my mum”

“After they lost a lot of money in the 1800s, actually,” she corrects him, but brushes away his mildly apologetic expression “bad investment, I believe; your great great grandfather’s father was somewhat of a gambler”

“I – I didn’t – I never thought, you guys probably know so much more about my family than I do”

“Not a lot more, I’m afraid,” she says regretfully, squinting ever so slightly against the dark orange sunset “like I said, they weren’t very prominent. Dorea distanced herself from the Black name in the same sort of way that Andromeda and Sirius did. We’re a fragmented circle and these wars brought it out in us. I can tell you, that the Potter’s have had a trademark from the origins of their ancestry; that mischievous glint in the eye”

Potter’s eyebrows shoot up then, and his eyes shine perhaps more obviously than before, short of breath for a moment and taken aback. She’s not lying though; the most consistent stories told of the Potters within pureblood culture, almost always overlays a delightfully warm and waggish nature.

“I just – I’ve never really considered the fact that we’re actually related”

“There are some who would hex you for saying so,” she smirks, wetting her lips with the tip of her tongue and lighting another cigarette “but yes, you and Draco are distant cousins”

He shudders slightly and she can’t help the small dry chuckle that trips out, knowing his distaste has less to do with the fact that they’re Malfoys, and more to do with his feelings for her son. He doesn’t seem to have realised it yet of course, and that’s a conclusion he’ll have to come to on his own.

“We’ve married in the family for centuries, Potter,” she reminds him “what you see as incest, we see as tradition. Although, I believe a large portion of muggles still marry their cousins as well”

“I don’t know what you’re insinuating,” Potter says unconvincingly “but I don’t think I like it, so I’m going to ignore it”

* * *

 

When Harry prays for the first time in three years, it’s a Thursday morning, two days before the Battle of Hogwarts. He doesn’t know that’s the case, but there’s something in his chest that won’t rest, something in his blood that bubbles, something in his bones that aches, something in the pit of his stomach that coils and whines in anticipation.

And he knows, in the moment that he opens his eyes at 5am, that this is what his soul needs.

So he finds a clean sheet out of the airing cupboard upstairs, and washes his feet, hands, and face, and cleans out the injuries he sustained the night Dumbledore died, redressing them.

Then he gets into the cleanest clothes he owns, and rummaging through his things, finds out his old Taqiyah. It’s practically unused now, and feels like he’s holding a memory in his hands, a whisper of the child he used to be.

Then he goes outside. He’d watched Fleur hosepipe the patio the night before, in attempt at normalcy, and he knows the ground is clean as it hasn’t rained all night, and she’s very fussy about her garden.

Laying the sheet down, he closes his eyes and draws in a very deep, grounding breath, letting it hit the bottom of his lungs and filter through his body, the cold of the end-of-April morning comforting and familiar.

He thinks about the things he’s done, the things he’s going to do in the following days, weeks, maybe even years. The lives he’s taken and will have to take, and kneels, thinking about how he wants to feel, about what it would be like to have a clear mind and even the slightest bit of peace in his heart.

Then he lifts his hands, swallows the lump in his throat, and lets his tongue move as the words finally leave his mouth, after so long.

“Allah – Akbar”

Reciting the opening paragraph of the Quran is easier than he’d expected it to be. He trips on a few words, as he hasn’t spoken it like this in a while; he used to make jokes with the Patil twins in the language, but he hasn’t seen them recently, and there hasn’t been much cause for laughter.

Once he begins, the rest comes naturally, like muscle memory, settling back into his bones and breathing into his blood. The clarity starts to spread through him then, a gentle reminder, a steady growing warmth in his chest.

This won’t be the first time he’s cried whilst praying, and he swears to himself right there and then, that it will not be the last.

* * *

 

Harry sits down on the long concrete bridge out of Hogwarts, and crosses his legs. Tapping Draco’s knee, he gestures to himself, and Draco sighs heavily, rolling his eyes and carefully turning to mirror his position, wincing and grunting as he moves.

Harry takes Draco’s right hand first, and reaches for the med kit he’s brought with him. Starting with the stitches, he pours alcohol over the large gash on Draco’s palm, paying no head to the choice curse words being hissed at him as he starts nudging the dirt from it with an anti-septic wipe. To soften the blow, Harry passes Draco the three litre bottle of vodka. Draco takes a long swig, and coughs only slightly when he swallows.

“Where the fuck did you even get this?”

“Hermione sent one of the OWL students out on a supply run; you have to be eighteen to buy alcohol in the muggle world”

“Is there a reason you’re patching me up like a muggle too?”

“I’m fucking exhausted,” Harry says honestly, the ache in his bones growing more wearisome with every third degree burn he has to rub salve into, with every thirteen-year-old sitting aimlessly with no parents and no idea who to go to, with every dead body being carted away by the ministry officials working overtime.

“I think I prefer this,” Draco says, casually turning his face to the sun and squinting under its glare. Harry can’t quite believe he’s still alive to feel its warmth on his skin; he hadn’t expected to live past his twentieth birthday.

“Me too,” Harry smiles briefly, sliding the medical thread under Draco’s skin and tugging it back together slowly “it’s easier to keep stitching people up and bandaging wounds than it is to crash out; I don’t think I’m quite ready for the new nightmares yet”

“There’s some dreamless sleep potion back at the safe house,” Draco remarks blandly “three drops before you conk out, and you’ll sleep like a baby”

“Thanks”

“Yeah, well, just returning the favour,” Draco’s pitiful attempt at nonchalance draws a dry chuckle from Harry’s lips and in a fatigued fit of shamelessness, Harry pauses in his ministrations and brings Draco’s knuckles to his mouth for a lingering moment. Draco’s eyelids flutter close and Harry is so incredibly grateful for the tightness in his chest and the way his breathing hitches; it lets him know his heart is still beating; he’s still Harry and he’s not dead.

The moment passes quickly, ephemeral in the midst of the storm settling around them. And as the cloud clears, the brutality of war becomes visible again.

“Where will you go?”

“My mother has secret property in the South West,” Draco replies “I suspect we’ll move into Mount Edgecumbe house as soon as we’ve been cleared through customs”

“They’ll grant you bail,” Harry insists, continuing to work on Draco’s injuries.

“You’re so sure all the damn time, Potter”

“That’s because I just killed Voldemort; if I tell them to keep you out of custody, they will”

“Sometimes you make me look mildly humble in comparison”

Harry snorts, and the small smile on his lips aches his face.

“You’re not going to enjoy the following few weeks then,” Harry says “the moment they start looking through the documents, shit will hit the fan”

“I’m not following you, Potter”

“I have no idea of the logistics, but Hermione says killing Voldemort basically means I just inherited pretty much all deatheater rights and property ever”

The string of curses that comes out of Draco’s mouth puts Ronan Lynch to shame.

* * *

 

As it turns out, Voldemort had gathered a metric shit tonne of modified liege lord titles since the beginning of his little genocide attempt; which, as the very nervous goblin lady states as she slams a giant book of finances on the table in front of him, seem to have defactoed Harry’s way. Honestly, accidental right of conquest should be public knowledge because this – this is just ridiculous.

The poor little lady has to get Harry a glass of water. He’s never been so white in his life.

“So,” Harry says about fifteen minutes later when he doesn’t feel like his limbs are going to drop off and float away “let’s just… exactly how much money are we talking about here?”

The goblin – Leslie, Harry notes from her nametag – looks hesitant as she actually takes the glass of water from him and downs the rest of it, and fresh anxiety coils in his gut.

“Approximately one hundred billion, five hundred thousand galleons, along with one hundred and twenty-six votes in the Wizengamot, and nine hundred and thirty-two properties across Europe”

Harry actually faints.

* * *

 

“Order!”

Harry swallows tightly and resists the urge to groan as the loud squabbling around the large courtroom quietens again and he shifts in his seat. Beside him, discomfort and distaste practically radiates from the two remaining Malfoys, one of only three families whose vote Harry has returned to them.

“As stated in previous session, the vote to provide free healthcare to all magical citizens under the British Ministry of Magic is hereby called. On the count of three, please raise your wand arm, and speak a simple ‘yes’, or ‘no’”

Of course, Harry and his one hundred and twenty votes say ‘yes’, and naturally, the entire magical population of Britain have free healthcare, effective immediately.

Walking out of the Ministry building with two disgraced Malfoys and a fractured circle of furious looking pureblood families branching away to get home, is a somewhat stressful experience.

With microphones and quit quotes quills in his face and camera flashes half blinding him, he almost loses his temper completely. As it is, a hand rests in the small of his back and guides him forward.

“Keep your head down,” Draco tells him, and then speaks up as they walk down the steps and out to the apparation decks “Mr Potter will be available for comment on the vote later on in the week; until then, promptly get that thing out of my face before I shove it so far up your arse it will find Atlantis for you”

* * *

 

It’s a Friday when it first hits Draco that there’s no war.

He’s been so busy moving everything into Mt Edgecombe house, and with the Deatheater trials and working out the vaults at Gringotts (he still hates Goblins, but mostly for their attitude now); he’s barely had time to sit and process.

But he wakes up around eleven, tugs on a thick cardigan that falls over his wrists just enough to be comforting, and pads outside in his cotton pyjama bottoms, lighting a cigarette. He has a mug of coffee wrapped in the other hand, the heat scolding as it spreads through his blood and contrasts with the chill of the wind on his skin.

Its raining; the spray sort that carries light on the wind and sits in his hair, clinging.

That’s when he realises that its over.

Really over.

There’s nowhere for him to be, no looming battle over his head, no split loyalties tearing him apart from the inside. Its cold but he’s calm and he can breathe.

Looking out across the grounds in front of him, he can see the stormy sea waking up, the tide in and hiding the bank of sand across the coast.

There are already muggles coming in on the Cremyll ferry, draped in waterproof ponchos and clutching at umbrellas, but it doesn’t bother him in the slightest. In fact, its nice. They’re a good four hundred yards away from the house, but their chatter carries up the long slant of grass and allows him both solitude and a very small smile.

The house has now been officially closed off from the public for the autumn into winter months. In the summer, it will still only look like a maintained piece of history; people will sit on the grass and have their picnics, but if anyone not weaved into the wards approaches, they’ll promptly remember that there’s another part of the grounds they wanted to look at.

Sir Richard Edgecombe had been a close friend of the family in the 1800s, and had left the Malfoys the land after he’d died during the muggle world war. They’d restored it, but this is the first time Draco’s ever stayed in it for an extended period of time.

And he’s fallen in love with it.

He’s fallen in love with Devon, really. Such a strange connection of sea and countryside; such a wet, windy coalesce of green and grey, such a beautiful, enduring thing.

“You look pensive”

Draco swallows and draws in a deep breath, letting it hit the bottom of his lungs. He doesn’t banish the small smile from his mouth, and he doesn’t look away from the grounds either, simply raising his eyebrows a touch.

“Don’t ruin my moment, Potter”

“I wasn’t,” his voice is always so quiet and gravelly in the mornings, but Draco thinks he likes him best this way; sleepy and dishevelled. The great Harry Potter and his faded Star Trek t-shirt.

“Got a light?”

“You’re a wizard, Potter,” Draco snorts, rolling his eyes. Potter pouts, but remembers thus, and clicks his thumb and finger together. A small flame ignites between them, unfaltering despite the wind, gone a second later.

“I came here once,” Potter remarks, clearing his throat to no avail “it was the only time The Dursleys ever took me with them on holiday. We stayed in Cornwall, and we came here for Vernon’s birthday. I fell in the sea but we didn’t have any towels with us and no one wanted their jackets to smell of salt. I had to walk around for the rest of the day in the middle of February, sopping wet”

“That’s – shit, Potter, that’s depressing”

“Petunia did buy me a coffee and let me sit in the café whilst they explored. I actually enjoyed it after that. Its beautiful, isn’t it?”

“Gorgeous, actually”

Potter smiles slightly and stands closer. After a few minutes, he drops his head to Draco’s shoulder and Draco rests his cheek on the top of his crown, still smoking and sipping at his drink.

“I could grow old here, you know?” when Draco speaks again, its quiet and a little rough.

“Hmm?”

“I only realised this morning,” he continues “I can grow old now”

“It’s a bit overwhelming, isn’t it?”

Draco closes his eyes tight and feels the rain against his cheeks, listens to the groundskeeper’s Jeep in the gardens, and the weight of Potter’s heartbeat near his own.

If a tear slips out and mixes with the weather on his cheeks, he doesn’t wipe it away or acknowledge it, but Potter does thread an arm around his waist. Draco presses a rough kiss to the top of his head, and that’s how they stay.

The rain doesn’t stop, the muggles continue to come and go near the bottom of the grass, and upstairs his mother sleeps safe and warm in her bed.

All is well.


End file.
